Posts Tagged ‘FairCoin’

When Greece was being screwed by the ECB I suggested creating a parallel crypto-currency, an alternative currency for Greece. Why, because it was not possible to leave the euro, a major logistics problem.

In Prague, last year, I saw parallel currencies in action, they use both Czech crown and the euro, therefore my idea for a parallel currency for Greece, part of Plan C, a transition to a commons based economy, was both practical and feasible.

Medium is looking to charge for reading articles. Medium, though not intended as, functions as a collaborative commons. To charge, would be a retrograde step, a classic case of enclosure of the commons. I have suggested to founder Ev Williams, that convert to an open coop, open source platform, do not charge for articles, all articles remain free to read, but have an option, where if readers wish they may pay for an article, and use faircoin.

Deliveroo, is an exploitative platform, serfs working for an app at often less than the minimum wage, replace with Deliver2U, an open source open coop platform, payment using faircoin and fairpay card.

Unicorns are mythical companies valued at over a billion dollars. Mythical because in reality worthless. Such has been the excesses of Uber, it has been proposed zebras, but these are business as usual, simply a little cosmetic tweaking to make it look good. When I had the audacity to suggest this, exposing the Emperor has no Clothes, a lot of stick over the weekend. What did not go down, was my suggestion, we are postcapitalism, the future open coops, open source platforms, local currencies, faircoin and fairpay card.

In Protaras, a little coffee shop Miyu Coffee and fashion boutique Nia Boutique overlooking Fig Tree Bay. Protaras is dying, Fig Tree Bay end dead, killed by all-inclusive hotels, no money flowing into the local economy. We explored the possibility, or at least tossed around the idea, why not establish a weekly mid-week market, a mix of flea market, farmers market and craft market to revitalise the area and retain and circulate money within the local economy.

Therefore to see in Heraklion this very idea up and running, and not only that but to see faircoin and fairpay card being used is excellent news.

On Saturday, 18th of March 2017, we hopefully reached to the 6th Autonomous Street Market, which are regularly organized by the Integral Cooperative of Heraklion (I.C.Her) at Georgiadi’s park. A project that is constantly strengthened and has come to serve some basic needs of those who actively show that they want and intend to disengage from the competitive and alienating market. Step by step, we cover more and more categories of products and services that are offered through our alternative currencies, Kouki and FairCoin.

The only problem I see with faircoin, is how to transfer from say euros to faircoin. To have to buy bitcoin from an exchange then use the bitcoin to buy faircoin is too cumbersome.

If fairpay cards are easily available, local nodes where they can be ‘charged’ with euros or faircoin, it will be a lot more viable.

More details are needed on how the market in Heraklion are managing these issues.

This latest Keiser Report is another example of nonsense being peddled, this time on bitcoin.

Skirting over in this discussion that bitcoin has run into technical problems, mere hints of the intercine warfare between core bitcoin developers. And that is only the tip of the iceberg of the problems facing bitcoin.

Bitcoin has failed miserably as a currency. It fails to meet the basic criteria of a currency:

store of value

unit of exchange

Bitcoin is highly volatile, it lacks utility. Where is the baker where I can use bitcoin to buy a loaf of bread?

Bitcoin has been hijacked by spivs and parasites, all out to make a fast buck. One of who was a guest on the programme. And who was this guest? Why none other than Simon Dixon, a vulture capitalist, who co-manages a vulture capital fund trying to make a fast buck out of bitcoin, co-manages with none other than Max Keiser himself. If, and a very big if, the investment goes well, investors are paid, please do not laugh, in bitcoin.

We offer a unique model whereby we invest one third of all funds in mining (The process used to create new coins) that is used exclusively to pay daily dividends to investors (in Bitcoin) for as long as the mining process is profitable.

This is a great way to accumulate Bitcoins without having to get deep into the geeky part of the process.

We mine a portfolio of coins and always look for the most profitable opportunity through our algorithm. Eventually the mining process can become unprofitable, so we utilise the latest technology with mining rigs in Iceland that optimise every penny of profit and we pay the coins generated through mining out to investors until the process is no longer profitable where the costs of running the rigs exceeds the value of the coins produced.

Our goal is that if the market conditions are right, investors receive a chunk of their investment back through Bitcoin, unlike any other investment fund.

Located in Iceland as one of the few places energy costs are low enough to make bitcoin mining feasible.

Max Keiser remarkably coy about the fact he is a bitcoin millionaire, indeed a deafening silence.

And where is BitCoin Capital based? Er, the tax dodging Cayman Islands.

Invest in a Ponzi scheme, attract more investors to inflate the price, and then you get a return, only the return is in the very thing you are investing.

You could not make this up if you tried.

Someone exposing that bitcoin is heading towards a brick wall due to technical problems, is not going to go down too well with a vulture capital fund where two of the people on the programme, including one of the presenters, have a direct vested interest.

Yes, we should be very concerned by the activity of all these players, especially the criminal banks trying to grab a piece of the action.

The New York Times article ridiculed, was actually quite a good article on the current problems with bitcoin. That Mike Kearn working for R3, irrelevant other than it indirectly highlights one of the problems with everyone associated with bitcoin, all out to line their own pockets.

This is not the mindset to be expected of people working on an Open Source, Open Protocol project located in the collaborative commons.

This is not the mindset of Open Software, Open Protocols, where you freely contribute your time to the collaborative commons, in order that all can benefit and in turn draw from the collaborative commons.

The mindset of the bitcoin developers is the opposite to that in The GNU Manifesto.

Software illustrates the dichotomy of the free flow of information. In one corner of the ring Bill Gates, who argues:

most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?

In the opposing corner of the ring Richard Stallman, who argues:

If anything deserves a reward, it is social contribution. Creativity can be a social contribution, but only in so far as society is free to use the results. If programmers deserve to be rewarded for creating innovative programs, by the same token they deserve to be punished if they restrict the use of these programs. … Extracting money from users of a program by restricting their use of it is destructive because the restrictions reduce the amount and the ways that the program can be used. This reduces the amount of wealth that humanity derives from the program. When there is a deliberate choice to restrict, the harmful consequences are deliberate destruction.

Bitcoin was developed as Open Source, Open Protocol. It has failed as a currency, but it has also failed because the Bitcoin developers have failed to comprehend the basic premise that Richard Stallman outlined in The GNU Manifesto. They are funded by vulture capitalists, parasitic start ups, all who are looking for means to profit from Bitcoin.

What relevance the number of transactions of bitcoin, best performing currency? All this tells us is that it attracts the interests of a lot of spivs and speculators out to make a fast buck.

How many of these transactions were using bitcoin as a currency to buy goods and services?

Bitcoin may work as a vehicle for the nefarious activities of spivs and speculators, as a currency it has been a complete and utter failure.

As a currency, the Brixton Pound is more of a success story than bitcoin. But then the Brixton Pound has not attracted the activities of spivs and speculators out to make a fast buck. It is used as a local currency, to buy goods and services within the local Brixton economy.

Bitcoin fails the basic requirements of a currency:

store of value

unit of exchange

Yes, there is a problem with the banks, lax regulation, they should have been broken up, casino banking split from retail banking, but that is an entirely separate issue, a side show and a distraction from the problems facing bitcoin.

In PostCapitalism, Paul Mason exposes the criminal activities of the bankers. He also shows that all the conditions are in place for yet another banking crisis, only this time there is no money to bail out the banks, and if there was there would be riots in the streets.

It is a moot point, that with the exception of Iceland, no bankers have gone to prison.

Clearly the banks have woken up to the fact that a functioning Bitcoin 2.0 would pose a real threat. The nearest we have to Bitcoin 2.0 is faircoin.

As a currency, bitcoin is an unmitigated failure, it is extremely volatile, and you will be hard fetched to to be able to spend it.

Where though bitcoin does come into its own, is as a quick and dirty means of transferring between currencies, across borders.

The banking crisis in Cyprus in 2013 created panic, the banks shut their doors for several days, the EU stole money from anyone with over 100,000 euros in their bank account, capital controls were introduced. A trial run for Greece two years later. Bitcoin offered a solution. Even the University of Nicosia jumped on the bandwagon, accepting payment of fees in bitcoin and offering a MSc in Digital Currency.

For migrant workers, sending money home is an expensive business.

Every year, migrant workers from Uganda send $700 million back home. Western Union and MoneyGram cream off 10-20% in fees. But it is not only the fees, it may necessitate half a day off work to journey to a Western Union Office, for the recipient, it could mean a day round trip to a Western Union Office.

Bitcoin offers a reliable and fast alternative. Not only that, volatile as bitcoin is, it is a better store of value than the local currency in Uganda.

Everyone has a smartphone, not everyone has a bank account.

Bitcoin, or better still faircoin, enables countries like Uganda, to completely bypass the banking system. It would only be one step, to go shopping with your smartphone, transfer money from one bitcoin or faircoin wallet to another.

Faircoin, which can be seen as BitCoin 2.0, attempts to address some of the problems associated with bitcoin.

For a currency to be viable it has to be widely accepted and stable. Bitcoin is neither.

The amount of energy required to generate or mine future bitcoins is not good for the planet, ie there is a real environmental cost associated with bitcoin.

Faircoin, which can be seen as BitCoin 2.0, attempts to address some of the problems associated with bitcoin.

We live in a world where we are connected instantaneously to everyone else in the world from a device we hold in our hand. We can communicate by voice or video, we can send files, pictures, music, books. The marginal cost of doing so is near zero. The marginal cost of the things we are distributing, sharing, is near zero.

Why then do we have antiquated methods of dealing with money, of paying for things, when we have a device in our hands that can do all of these things at zero marginal cost?. At street level, use cash. Within the internet us a crypto-currency. We do not need banks.

$500 billion is sent home by migrant workers. Typically they send these remittances home by walking into a Western Union Office, showing their ID, paying a fee of somewhere between seven to ten percent, the recipient walks into a similar office, shows an ID and recipient code, and picks up the cash. A very antiquated system.

Cheque clearing, was, maybe still is, even more antiquated. Cheques go the the head office, they are then literally couriered across to the head office of another bank.

If I wish to invest in the Robin Hood Hedge Fund, it costs 50 euros for membership, plus 50 euros each share, If payment goes across national boundaries, there are additional costs associated with each Central Bank.

If you own bitcoin, you can via the network, transfer to other accounts at zero marginal cost.

The internet runs on Open Software and Open Standards. The bitcoin blockchain is built on Open Software and Open Standards.

If I walk in a bank, and transfer money from one account to another, I do not have to take money out, then pay it back in (though I may wish to do that in the Cayman islands if I am money laundering and do not wish my transfer to be easily traced). What usually happens, the money is directly transferred from one account to another, in reality the sum is debited from one account and added to another account. But it means I have to trust the bank as a trusted third party.

The bitcoin blockchain allows the transfer of digital assets from one entity to another in a verifiable way (these assets may be viewed as a crypto-currency but do not have to be). A message is sent to the network, that enables the transfer of these assets from one account to another. The blockchain is a tamper proof ledger in the public domain. The asset transferred in the case of bitcoin, is a currency, but it does not have to be.

The blockchain has uses beyond bitcoin. Singer-songwriter Imogen Heap has proposed Mycelia, a blockchain for tracking music. She has released Tiny Human to test out the concept.

Yes, Greece should leave the euro, but difficult to create a new currency from scratch.

Not in the same position as Iceland or Argentina, both countries had own currencies, but otherwise similar.

Were Greece still on the drachma, they would not be where they are today.

But, they are too fixated on remaining in the euro and being members of Fourth Reich, even though neither is of advantage to them, quite the opposite.

This meant they had one arm tied behind their back when they entered into negotiations and were shafted. Had they called the bluff, defaulted, exited the euro, the euro would have collapsed and Germans would have been in the shit.

The role of a Central Bank is a lender of last resort. For the euro zone it is the European Central Bank. ECB turned off the money supply to Greece to force Greece to its knees. Once there was unconditional surrender, a choice between suicide or execution, ECB turned back on the money supply to Greek banks. The money that was lent, flowed back out to pay off international creditors, a point Germans should note when they keep referring to bailing out Greece.

The Fourth Reich showed they would happily destroy a country if that country did not give in to its demands. They forced onto Greece, not only a surrender, but an unconditional surrender, part of which is rape and pillage of the country, enclosure of the commons, sell off of Greek assets on the cheap. But at least we all now know what the Fourth Reich is capable of, Its brutality was exposed for all the world to see. At least Podemos in Spain now know exactly what they are dealing with.

It was meant to set an example to Podemos, do not dare oppose the Fourth Reich this too will be your fate.

But it has had had the opposite effect, for pro-democracy activists across Europe to double their efforts to defeat the Fourth Reich.

What we have learnt, we have to work from the grass roots upwards. Syriza has grass roots support that most parties would die for, the NO vote showed that. But it was not enough. We have to restructure society from the bottom up.

Syriza’s surrender wasn’t necessarily an ignominious one. As Lenin commented of the failed 1905 revolution in Russia, it was a retreat for a new attack, which ultimately proved successful. “I’m not going to sugarcoat this and pass it off as a success story,” Tsipras said to parliament on Wednesday, prior to the vote, acknowledging that the spending cuts and tax increases contained in the agreement would deal another blow to the Greek economy. However, that wasn’t the full story, Tsipras insisted. “We have left a heritage of dignity and democracy to Europe,” he said. “This fight will bear fruit.”

The euro zone is to benefit German industrial output.

The problem Greece has is many idle hands, work that needs doing, and no money to connect the two. What connects the two is money.

But money there is none, the banks are closed., or were, but even now open, restrictions on withdrawals.

Money has strange properties, it can move mountains, a feat usually the province of Gods.

What we call recession, an earlier culture might have called “God abandoning the world.” Money is disappearing, and with it another property of spirit: the animating force of the human realm. At this writing, all over the world machines stand idle. Factories have ground to a halt; construction equipment sits derelict in the yard; parks and libraries are closing; and millions go homeless and hungry while housing units stand vacant and food rots in the warehouses. Yet all the human and material inputs to build the houses, distribute the food, and run the factories still exist. It is rather something immaterial, that animating spirit, which has fled. What has fled is money. That is the only thing missing, so insubstantial (in the form of electrons in computers) that it can hardly be said to exist at all, yet so powerful that without it, human productivity grinds to a halt.

On the individual level as well, we can see the demotivating effects of lack of money. Consider the stereotype of the unemployed man, nearly broke, slouched in front of the TV in his undershirt, drinking a beer, hardly able to rise from his chair. Money, it seems, animates people as well as machines. Without it we are dispirited.

In the Great Depression there was no money, in US banks were closed, because they were bust.

They created scrips, alternative currencies, across Europe and in the States. They were successful, incredibly successful. The reason they do not exist today is because they were too successful, the Central Banks closed them down.

In 1931, a German coal mine operator decided to open his closed mine by paying his workers in wara. It was backed by coal. Because it was backed by coal, which everyone could use, local merchants and wholesalers were persuaded to accept it. The mining town flourished, and within the year at least a thousand stores across Germany were accepting wara, and banks began accepting wara-denominated deposits. Feeling threatened, the German government tried to have the wara declared illegal by the courts; when that failed, it simply banned it by emergency decree.

The following year, the depressed town of Wörgl, Austria, issued its own stamp scrip inspired by the success of the wara. The Wörgl currency was by all accounts a huge success. Roads were paved, bridges built, and back taxes were paid. The unemployment rate plummeted and the economy thrived, attracting the attention of nearby towns. Mayors and officials from all over the world began to visit Wörgl until, as in Germany, the central government abolished the Wörgl currency and the town slipped back into depression.

Another currency that emerged around this time was the Wir in Switzerland. The currency is issued by a cooperative bank and is backed only by the mutual agreement of its members to accept it for payment.

In the United States many “emergency currencies,” as they were called, were issued in the early 1930s. They appeared because the banks had gone bust. Roosevelt banned all “emergency currencies” by executive decree when he launched the New Deal. The reason he did this was not because the local and state currencies wouldn’t be effective in ending the Depression, but because it would mean a loss of central government control.

The only alternative currency that still exist is the Wir in Switzerland. Alternative currencies did not vanish because they were not successful, on the contrary the were legislated out of existence because they were too successful, they challenged the power of the Central Bank, limited the ability of the Central Bank to control the amount of currency circulating in the economy.

Greece does not have the problem of the Central bank losing control, as it has no control.

This is the way forward in Greece, create alternative currencies.

There is no problem Central Bank not having control, as Greece has no control over the euro.

It was considered launching a new drachma, but the logistics were considered too great. But were they, if scrips were successfully issued during the Great Depression? There would though have been a delay, and had Greece left the euro, the shock to the economy would have been too great.

The FairCoin wallet for Android would be a good starting point, as open source, it could be modified.

Each account could be loaded or pre-loaded with 1000 euro-equivalent (for small businesses 5000 euro-equivalent).

How to get the money into the account? It could be pre-loaded, or transferred by the Central Bank.

Uniqueness of each account, one account per person. Would need a unique ID. Maybe social security number or whatever Greeks use on passport or ID Card. Unique ID for local business? VAT registration number?

Need to create protocols, then implement as a smartphone app. This work already done if use or modify FairCoin wallet.

In the interim FairCoin could be used, download and install the FairCoin wallet. But where would the money come from, unless the Central Bank bought FairCoin, but where would the Central Bank acquire the money from?

Having Greek alternative digital currency, the Central Bank can create. Government and local government can pay in part in the alternative digital currency salaries.

Local currencies could be created, and according to Paul Mason, these already exist.

The European Central bank is proposing Quantitative Easing of one trillion euros.

We know from the UK, Quantitative Easing to be a failed policy, it has little impact on the real economy, the only impact is to transfer money to the rich and inflate the already obscene bonuses of bankers.

There is no means by which the debt will ever be repaid. Pretend and extend is a fiction. Remove the debt and Greece will be in budget surplus, or was before ECB turned off the cash flow.

The role of a Central Bank is to act as lender of last resort when banks have a liquidity problem. For Greece, the Central Bank is ECB. Far from acting as lender of last resort, ECB turned off the cash flow.

When a country has control over its own currency, it can devalue during an economic crisis. That option has not been open to Greece, instead we have seen a devaluing of its people through austerity.

Debt is being used as a mechanism to destroy the Greek economy and to enslave the people.

There are other measures that need to be brought in, for example tax transparency. The tax everyone pays should be published. This would go a long way to addressing tax evasion.

An alternative currency, creation of local currencies, is not itself sufficient nor should be seen as an end in itself. It should be implemented as part of a wider programme of advancing the commons, creating open co-ops, part of Plan C as advocated by P2P Foundation.

To encourage greater use of cryptocurrency FairCoin, FairCoop has launched FairCoin Week, 24-31 July 2015.

During FairCoin Week shops, cafes, restaurants, bars, fair trade shops, self-employed people, and cooperatives, etc around the world will be invited to accept FairCoins in their transactions and verify first hand how this fair trade cryptocurrency can be a very useful tool in their economic exchanges.

The initiative also aims to encourage consumers to use FairCoin, show its real use in businesses, and contribute to their integration within the society we are helping to transform.

Faircoin Week is a call out to all those individuals and collectives committed to the values that FairCoop promotes to participate in this week of action!

On this site useful content on how to participate in the initiative, and other useful information for those users who want to know where to go to try FairCoin, what businesses are already using the system, and how and where to spend their digital currencies.

As active participants and as local nodes of FairCoop, you can contribute to this FairCoin Week by promoting it among your local contacts; and particularly by finding shops aligned with the Faircoop principles which can participate in the event and adopt this cryptocurrency. We invite you to get involved in this action and start to visualize the network we are forming together!

As a shop you can join the FairCoin Week and start to make the new economic system a reality! You help us to promote Faircoin and through http://use.fair-coin.org we help you to spread your project.

As a user, stay tuned to the updates on this website, and if you want you can prepare for the Faircoin Week by:

FairCoop will give away 40 FairCoin for you to participate in FairCoin Week!

With the aim of promoting FairCoin Week, FairCoop has allocated a budget of 40,000 FAIR to invite anyone to have a fairtrade drink or meal and pay with FairCoin.

FairCoop will distribute 40 FairCoins to anyone who wants to participate in this action from anywhere in the world. The plan is to reach a thousand participants using FairCoin.

To participate in this collective action, you‘ll need to find somewhere in the town or city where you are going to be between 24 and 31 July, that accepts FairCoin.

It is important that you help to spread awareness of FairCoin Week by raising awareness of the proposal to a bar or shop that you trust, and encourage them to to accept this fair cryptocurrency.

You may feel now all this is almost symbolic, but it could soon become a globally accepted monetary system that allows us to share in economic solidarity and social justice. Now you can contribute to this next step!

4) To find shops and businesses near you that accept FairCoin, use the directory: http://use.fair-coin.org/. Although as stated earlier, ideally you‘ll invite your favourite shop or bar to participate in this initiative, enabling you to spend your 40 FAIR with them.

General Election 2015 in UK is one gigantic BoreFest. Much as the mainstream corporate controlled and owned media would like to give the impression otherwise, falsely creating an illusion of choice, there is no choice. Tweedledee v Tweedledum. Whose turn is it to act for Big business?

Is it not time we fought for change, started to organise our own society?